It’s not that I don’t like planning — I just don’t like planning things really far into the future. In fact, I love planning once I find something I really want to do, and often spend hours researching and planning out important details. However, I focus most of my energy on planning those attainable, next-step goals and not far-into-the-future goals. This is partially because I have no idea what I want to do in the future, which makes it difficult to plan for it. Actually scratch that, I have a rough idea of what I want to do but I’m not attached to any one path. I could see myself going the education route, the community development route, the emergency management route, the wedding photographer route, or even the graphic design route. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind exploring any of those options, and I’ll probably just choose the one that presents itself to me first and I’ll be happy, or I’ll switch to the next one. I hope to have a somewhat non-linear career path, which makes it difficult to predict or plan. Where exactly I’ll be in five years is blurry but optimistic to me, and I’m fine with not knowing — it keeps life exciting! In the most genuine usage of this cliche: it’s about the journey.
So far, I’ve gotten up to August 2017 in my planning. This summer I’ll be working as a coordinator for a summer camp that I attended growing up and volunteered at as a counselor in high school. The program got a grant this year to implement a social justice theme, so I’ve been working with the director to organize excursions and meetings with local organizations and plan curriculum and activities for the high schoolers and 8th grade campers. I’m really excited and somewhat nervous to be in this role. Since I had such influential mentors when I was in high school, I’m really hoping I can provide a similar experience to the youth this summer. After that, I’ll be moving to New Zealand in August and I plan to stay there for around a year, potentially more depending on career prospects. I’ve found some really cool jobs in the community development sector as well as the emergency management sector, but we’ll see what ultimately ends up working out.
I could see myself working in Asia teaching English for a year or so, but I think that would depend on my job situation in New Zealand. I’ve really enjoyed working with AES students at LC though, so I hope I can use that experience somewhere in my future. I don’t see grad school in my near future (next 3 years) but if I get into a field that I really enjoy and higher education is important in developing my understanding of it, I’m not opposed to going back to school. I recently got the idea that since I have EU citizenship from my dad, I could potentially attend a grad school in Europe (because they’re cheaper there, right?). Obviously both of these ideas are very much still ideas, and dependent on what happens in the next few years.
In terms of a year-by-year plan, my current tactic is to self-evaluate each year — if I’m happy I’ll keep going, if I’m unhappy I’ll stop doing the thing that is making me unhappy. I think these many possible pathways were created in part by my experience at LC. I don’t feel trained in any one specific thing, but rather I’m able to consider a variety of options thanks to this wonderful interdisciplinary education.